Ever since I was a kid, one of my favorite genres of novels has been the mystery/detective tales. From plowing through all the Agatha Christie novels while in junior high school to more contemporary authors like Michael Connelly, I've always enjoyed stories that have an aspect of trying to guess how they will end. I've also always been a fan of jig-saw puzzles. So that I'm fascinated by trying to unravel the stories of my family history shouldn't be too much of a surprise. Over the last 4 years or so I've uncovered a whole slew of people that I (and much of the rest of the family) knew nothing about. From the simple things like learning the names of my great-great grandparents on both the Murray and Coleman sides of the family to discovering the names of great grandaunts and uncles I'd never heard of to figuring out what happened to all these people, it's been a great adventure and a never ending series of mysteries and puzzles to work out.
Beyond working out the puzzles of people I've found with a direct connection to me and my family, I've also encountered a number of people that appear momentarily with my relatives and then disappear. I've also encountered people who seem to ride alongside continuously but I have no idea what the connection is between them and my family. I'm not sure which is more frustrating -- people who seem obviously connected but can't be found beyond a single record or ones who don't appear connected at all but appear in multiple records.
The first time I encountered people I couldn't figure out the connection was when I found my great-great grandparents John and Bridget Murray in the 1870 census. They were living with another couple John and Margaret Feehan. John is a 23 year old shoemaker from Ireland and Margaret is 20 years old and from New York. I did a cursory search on them and discovered that John died in 1875 and was from County Louth, Ireland. Since John Murray was from Galway and Bridget McDonough Murray was from Sligo, I figured John and Margaret Feehan were friends they made upon arriving in San Francisco and set them aside. It's possible there may be some other connection to find, but that's to study at a much later time.
Then I hit my first real conundrum. I was searching for my Mullane relatives and found them living at 45 Belcher Street between 1894 and 1897. This enabled me to discover my great-great grandmother Mary Mullane and her brothers, but there was one name that appeared in 1895 and then disappeared again completely. There was someone named Richard E. Mullane living with the rest of the Mullane family at 45 Belcher in 1895. At first I thought he might be another of Mary's brothers, but as I dug through the years I found no brother with the name Richard. So who is he? Where did he come from? Where did he go? I can't find any other record for him. There are two other mysterious Mullanes who appear at the 45 Belcher address -- Edwin and Joseph. Those two may be one of Mary's brothers recorded mistakenly. The 1880 census lists a Joseph among the brothers and he appears again in 1900 and is in the city directories between 1894-1909. The confusion comes in 1898 when there are two Josephs living in the Belcher house. To make matters worse starting in 1895 there is a Timothy Joseph Mullane living in the same house. Tracking Timothy forward, I found a record from a funeral home collection that included his death notice in the paper. "T. Joseph Mullane ... brother of Phillip and Patrick Mullane and Mrs. Mary (Edward) Murray." So, it is possible that Timothy and at least one of the Josephs are the same person, but I can't put them together. Edwin Mullane appears from 1897-1899, and I strongly suspect that this is a misprint for Mary's brother Edward Mullane I just can't prove it.
So I've stuck Richard, Joseph, and Edwin Mullane over to one side to puzzle over later. Perhaps they're other relatives that will turn up or are actually people I've already identified that were mistakenly identified in the city directories.
And then there are the Comerfords. In the 1910 census a John W. Comerford and his daughter Maime are listed as lodgers with Patrick Mullane and his wife Ellen. John Comerford is still living with Patrick and Ellen in the 1920 census. When I went to Holy Cross Cemetery looking for Patrick's grave, I discovered among the many people he's buried with, there is Mary Comerford who died in 1917! I went back to find Mary Comerford in the 1900 census since she's 13 in 1910, and she turns up living in the family of Jeremiah and Mary Sullivan -- Ellen Mullane's parents! She's only 4 years old and neither of her parents are living with the Sullivans and she's listed as a "lodger." Right now my guess is the Comerfords are related to the Sullivans some how, but I'm not entirely sure. I also double checked the burial records for the plot where Patrick Mullane was buried on sfgenealogy.com since the headstone also listed a Mary Donohue in the plot. It turns out that Patrick Mullane was buried with his daughter Myrtle, along with John and Mary Comerford, Jeremiah Sullivan, and Mary and John Donohue. Patrick, Myrtle, Mary Comerford, Jeremiah Sullivan, and Mary Donohue are listed on the headstone. Jeremiah Sullivan was Patrick's father-in-law and I believe Mary Donohue was his mother-in-law who remarried after Jeremiah's death (thus explaining John Donohue.) I haven't tied in the Comerfords anywhere yet and I don't know what happened to Ellen Sullivan Mullane. She's not buried with the rest of the family and I've yet to find a death record for her, so even the mystery people lead to other family mysteries.
The final group of mystery people are the employers and business partners I've encountered. I'm curious about these people also and what their stories are and how they relate to my family's stories. I've done very little digging into these people other than to note their names when they appear. This group is definitely the lowest priority of mystery people.
I've spent a little bit of time trying to track down all these people to see how they fit in, but with so many other puzzles to work out they are definitely secondary in my research. Still, as someone who loves working out puzzles, I won't leave them alone entirely.
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